As well as providing another valuable point of contact, it will be a great place to catchup with all that’s going on within the business including the Dealer Summer Party held just this weekend (special guest – Jim Bowen from Bullseye!).

You’ve probably also noticed that the majority of email newsletters you receive these days are designed with a fixed width as opposed to a ‘fluid’ layout.

This is because the most email clients and web-based email providers don’t use the full width of your screen to display an email message. Whether it’s advertising on Gmail, a menu in Hotmail or your Inbox in Outlook, a chunk of screen real estate is often already being used.

Remember, your recipients are busy and impatient, so horizontal scroll bars are even more of a no-no in email than a web page. Because of this, it is a good idea to keep your emails to a fixed width of no more than 550-600 pixels. This should ensure that in the majority of cases, your subscribers can view your email as you intended.

What about height?

Obviously the height of each email you send will vary depending on the amount of content. At the same time, it’s good to keep in mind that a lot of your recipients may scan your email in a preview pane before they decide to read the entire thing.

The average preview pane is around 300-500 pixels high, so make sure you include any important bits of your email in this area. First impressions count. A good way to check how your email looks in a variety of email readers is to use ourdesign and spam testing tool, which gives you screenshots of your campaign as it will appear.

So we’re looking for an ambitious and sparky new member to join our team.

As you’ll see from our website we’re a small team that offers the full marketing mix, mostly B2B but with a little bit of consumer thrown in there too.

We’ve been going since ’94 and are in great financial shape to strengthen the business with a Social Media & PR Exec.

We’re looking for someone who will help us develop social media & PR business, can write a strategy proposal and ‘muck in’ with all the other things a small agency get up to.

It’s a tall order, but if…

• You’re a great communicator who understands the world of PR
• Can write brilliant copy
• Is not afraid to sell yourself and Cloud 9
• Knows all about how to maximise business opportunities on Facebook, Twitter, blogs and podcasts
• Doesn’t mind pitching in with some general admin around the place, as well as taking on some account management
• You want to work in the middle of the countryside and are not afraid/allergic to Molly

…then you’re the perfect person for us.

Put your PR skills to good use and persuade us to meet you – the world is your lobster!

Please note: At this time we’re not looking for any help filling this role from recruitment agencies or similar thanks.

We’re looking for someone who knows how to identify and qualify, write proposals and help us win extra business.

We’re progressive and have all the in-house ability to design and build. We’re really cost-effective and have GREAT customer service (all you have to do is let people know about us).

As the New Business Manager your focus will be on generating sales for our digital services, including website design and development, CMS, e-Commerce, email and social marketing.

If you’re feeling unloved where you’re currently working, and want to join a friendly team where you’ll get all the support you’ve been craving, you need to get in touch and sell yourself to Mike.

Please note: At this time we’re not looking for any help filling this role from recruitment agencies or similar thanks.

National Hickman

We started with ‘evolving’ their brand identity and then went on to create a new website.

The site was be created using the most up-to-date CMS (content managed system) which will enable National Hickman to add, edit and delete material such as news, product information and even video, quickly and easily.

This will provide the added ongoing benefit of helping to keep on-going site-management costs to a minimum.

In addition to these features, National Hickman also uses our Email Marketing System, to manage email subscribers, send email news & latest news about their products.

Here’s the techy bits:

• CMS (Content Managed System) to enable the client to update all the site themselves, including text, images & video
• A simple form-to-email is used for contact information
• A blog/news section
• Users can contribute their comments to the site (All comments are auto or client-vetted, before they appear on the site)
• Email Marketing & management
• Custom image galleries
• FAQs area
• Downloads area
• Google Analytics (Stats)
• Email Marketing System integration
• Twitter integration (Content is automatically posted)

Other work included:

• Brand identity
• Corporate literature
• Photography (staff and location)
• PowerPoint Slide templates
• PR

Here’s a quick preview of how it looks on an iPhone.

A focus on reporting

When deciding what functionality to include in the mobile version, we’ve been keeping a close eye on our customers. It turns out that the most popular section of your account accessed by a mobile device is campaign reporting, so that’s where we focused our efforts. More than 95% of all mobile visitors also come in on an iPod or iPhone variant, so we put a lot of work into making sure the experience was perfect on these devices in particular. It’s a really nice way to get the latest stats on a campaign you’ve sent in a couple of thumb presses.

Launch it

One great thing about the iPhone is that you can launch web applications just like a traditional app you’ve bought from the App Store. By heading into your account with Safari and adding it to your Home screen, you have a dedicated button that will load your latest reports with a single click. We even provide a nice icon and loading screen while the latest stats are downloading.

There is lots of cool technology under the hood of our mobile version, and I’ll be sure to share some of the more interesting details in a future post.

Easy switching

While the mobile version is all about your campaign reports right now, you can still switch to the full version and access all our functionality with a single click. At the footer of every page is a link to switch to the corresponding page in the full version of the app. We’ll automatically switch you back to the mobile version the next time you log in.

If you’re using this; please let us know what you think

We have no strong political views one way or the other here at Cloud 9, however it does seem the Lib Dems are trying to win our votes in getting down with the kids in launching their own Manifesto iPhone app

Could a queue of Lib Dem MPs be ordering their Apple iPads on their expenses right now?

WRONG!

Google is now combining the maximum price you’re prepared to pay per click with the quality of your website in order to determine how high up the sponsored links you appear – so if you’re prepared to pay £2 per click and your competitor is prepared to pay £1 per click but has a better website – they could appear above you in Google sponsored links.

Want to know more? – check out this nice, nerdy old dude from Google who explains it better.

It seems the more you invest in your website, the less you pay in Adwords (and of course the better it performs in regular search engine optimisation too)!
Isn’t it about time you gave us a buzz and got your site performing better for you?

Here at Cloud 9 we’re proud to show off our latest exhibition stand job – for Morsø stoves at the National Homebuilding and Renovation Show at the NEC.

The show has been open for the last couple of days and business is brisk (and due to get busier as visitors arrive over the weekend).

Our brief was to showcase the premium Morsø’s brand and products, whilst being mindful of a tight budget.

Cloud 9 organised the whole presence for Morsø; including:

• Stand space negotiation and booking
• ‘Real fire’ flueing
• Stand design
• Stand build
• Marketing collateral
• Pre-show awareness

Check out more photos in this gallery…

[View with PicLens]

The National Homebuilding & Renovation Show is open to the public and runs at the NEC

18 – 21 March 2010